Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

Mystery magnifies danger as the fog the sun.

War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.

Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.

Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.

Alas! What is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, of whether he discard it, a frail and trembling creature; standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture, still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas, he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short.

Those graces which from their presumed facility encourage all to attempt an imitation of them, are usually the most inimitable.